


The Child 

and Other Verses 



Mary Louisa Anderson 




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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



The Child 

and Other Verses 



Mary Louisa Anderson 



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XTbe 1kn!cF?erl)oc??er press 

New York 
1915 



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Copyright by 

MARY L. ANDERSON 

191S 




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W. W. A. 



CONTENTS 



The Child 

These Things Come to 
Face 

" Montgomery Fell " 

Prescience 

-Wind in the Marshes 

The Return 

Sorrow . 

Night in the City Park 

The Golden Rose 

The Vermont Pine . 

Recessional 

The Tender Isles 

Resurgam 

Winter Twilight 

Intimations 

Sea Song 

The Moment . 

Rose 

Spring . 

The Name 

Liberation 



Me 



m 



My 



Mother's 



PAGE 
I 

4 

5 

7 
8 

9 
II 

12 

13 

14 
i6 

17 
i8 

19 

20 
21 
22 

23 
24 

25 
26 



^.J-J" 



|»v.„«.. 



Atonement 

An English Rose 

In Memoriam 

The Son 

Reveille . 

The Perfect Thing 

The Chimes . 

A Rose . 

On the Shore . 

A Dream . 

The Thought . 

Drifting . 

A Harvest Field 

Lost 

The Song . 

Winds 

The Call . 

Written in Bliss Carman's Book 

On the Sound . 

The Things that Are the Clearest 

Voices — ^A Cycle 

"Shut-in "Creek 

A Sunset 



PAGB 
28 
29 

31 
32 

34 
36 
37 
38 

39 
40 

41 
42 

43 

44 

45 

47 
48 

49 
50 
51 

52 
54 
55 



VI 



THE CHILD 

UP where mountain peaks are high, 
And purple skies are low ; 
Where whitest noons and whiter stars 
Look down on glistening snow, 



At midnight of a Christmas Eve — 

A bitter night and wild — 
Alone, along the wintry way, 

There walked a little Child. 

He was as tender and as fair 

As any drifting bloom 
Of inextinguishable Spring 

Against the frost of doom. 

And this was just the wondrous thing; 

He moved through cold and storm. 
The yawning dark, the fearftd height 

Safely and blithe and warm. 



THE CHILD 

The savage wind enfolded Him 

In tenderness complete ; 
The snow enrolled in softened depths 

Of ermine to His feet. 

One little touch of His deterred 

The crumbling hills of stone. 
He trod the stairs of riven ice, 

Like steps before the throne. 

And when He came at last where men 

In safety slept and fed, 
He summoned them and they arose 

And followed where He led. 

They followed through the fearful night, 

Nor questioned nor demurred, 
Foregoing each his fireside 

At that unspoken Word. 

And though the darkness did not pale, 

The tempest did not cease. 
They found that where they followed Him, 

There was a way of peace. 



THE CHILD 



The shepherds and the men of toil 
Who knew the region wild, 

Saw they had been but aliens till 
They journeyed with the Child. 



And when the morning dawned they told 

The vision of the night — 
About a Boy whose voice was love, 

Whose face was hid in light ; 

Of how they followed Him with joy 

Unspeakable, and how, 
Of all that followed, there was "none 

Durst ask Him, 'Who art Thou?'" 



THESE THINGS COME TO ME IN MY 
MOTHER'S FACE 

1'^HESE things come to me in my Mother's 
face: 
A wind flower blooming in a shaded place, 
The sudden star that breaks a stormy night, 
And in her eyes a brown bird, quick with 

flight. 
Then, as I look, I hear a wood wren sing 
(Warm, unafraid, defenceless little thing!) 
A note so white, so wonderful, so far, 
I almost lose the brown bird in the star. 



(( 



MONTGOMERY FELL" 



(A tablet on the hillside of Vrhs de Ville, Quebec, 
marks the spot where General Montgomery was killed 
in his effort to take the garrison above early on the 
morning of December 31, 1775.) 

CLOSE to the city, but so far away! 
(The Past is 'round the corner from 
To-day.) 
Between the narrow roadway and the sky 
The hill is high, 
The rock is bold and steep, 
And strong to keep 

The memory of that footstep and that name, 
On its grey side the record of his fame. 
Little it says, and well — 
"Montgomery fell." 
However wide the glory, 
However full the life to fill the story, 
However long the grief. 
Death's word is brief. 
Came he so near to conquest? 

5 



''MONTGOMERY FELL" 



Ah, so near 

The name is here ! 

And yet between the fortress and his dream, 

the letters tell, 
"Montgomery fell." 
The Dream? Had he a dream on his last 

night ? 
Look upward toward the height, 
Look long, and there discern 
An old fort rise whereon strange letters burn, 
Letters not touched by time or blood: 
"Within these walls Montgomery stood." 



PRESCIENCE 

THE hedge is standing sunk in night 
Across the lawn, 
Save (where I know its flowers are white) 
Is hovering a little light, 
Like dawn. 



The trees look graven in the air, 
So still they are, 
In high relief, distinct and fair, 
With, deep embedded here and there, 
A star. 



This shadowy garden where I move 

Is not my own. 

Its dim delight, its trees above. 

Its fragrance, are in fee to Love 

Unknown. 



The rapture that it does enfold 
I wait to claim ; 

A face the darkness would withhold 
And to my ear, as yet untold — 
A name. 



V WINDS IN THE MARSHES 

IN silver eddies move the winds 
Along the waving grass — 
So beautiful and yet unseen, 
Unfollowed, do they pass! 
They stroke the shining meadow there, 
And break it up like glass. 

Between the marshes, golden green, 

How blue the water lies, 

Upon the sunning breast of earth 

A pattern of the skies ; 

And both are stirred by summer wind 

To mood and mysteries. 

And now the Breath of Beauty, white, 

Brushes the willows' sheen. 

Then back again across the blue 

And back across the green. 

So walks the Wonder up and down, 

Still lovely, and unseen. 



8 



THE RETURN 

'"PHE little trees turn first with the 

1 branches that are broken, 

The huckleberry bushes and the hardy 

meadow ferns. 
This is the fringe of loveliness, that ere the 

word be spoken 
Which fires the heart of forests, already lights 

and burns. 



Pale aster-purple fields are edged with tawny 
grasses, 

And flecks of down are clinging upon the yel- 
low broom. 

A breath of springtime subtlety returns as 
summer passes, 

The tender, faint penumbra around the win- 
ter's gloom. 

9 



THE RETURN 

'Tis the twilight of the year — its pale and 

lambent gloaming, 
When life recedes in beauty from the surface 

of the land, 
And when the princely Wanderer comes, eager 

from his roaming. 
Lifts the latch and lights the fire and stooping, 

takes command. 

(Now the Httle trees have turned, and the 

branches that are broken, 
The huckleberry thickets and the hardy 

meadow fern ! 
So be still, my heart, and listen for the hush 

that is thy token 
And be thy grey hearth garnished for the fire 

that shall burn!) 



lO 



SORROW 

LOVE met me in the village 
And saw me not, " he said. 
"The look I craved just brushed my eyes 
And found the lad's instead. 



"Death passed me in the battle- 
So close — so close," he said. 
"I heard the ball go singing by 
And take the lad instead. 



"But there was One o'erlooked me not 
Who passed unnamed," he said. 
"More than the others had withheld, 
This One left me instead." 



II 



NIGHT IN THE PARK 

OVER the city park 
Steals the absorbing dark. 
The night has found the trees 
And rests at last in these. 
Incomparable night they make of him — 
Erebus Emerald — with outline dim, 
And heart as deep as his own sleep. 
And there, ah, there — 
How delicate and fair! 
What is it lends the lawn 
And its fastidious flowers, 
That fairy dawn. 
Fit for young love, like ours? 
It is the big white light beyond the fir, 
Spiritual as a star, 
But not so far, aye, not so far! 
In this like her 
Whose eyes upon me shine. 
Near as the night, and as the stars, divine. 



12 



THE GOLDEN ROSE 

SING the song of a golden rose! 
Sing the golden heart of a song! 
Sing the heart of a song that glows 
In fragrance and gold the glad day long — 
In beauty, the night and the deep day long! 

Heart of a yellow rose, heart of the noon, 
Why does the mocking-bird sing to the day? 
Why does he dream in his song of the moon 
While you are shedding the sunlight away — 
Shedding the moonlight and sunlight away? 

You who are loved of the sun and the moon, 
Gorgeous by day and beglamoured by night, 
Tender with shade to the passionate noon, 
To the passionate darkness as tender with 

light- 
Tender with shadow and tender with light ! 

Sing the song of a golden rose ! 

Sing the golden heart of a song! 

Sing the song of a heart that glows 

In fragrance and gold the glad day long — 

In beauty, the day and the deep night long! 

13 



A VERMONT PINE 

IN hot September's midday track 
Come to the edge of the wood, 
Where the victorious day falls back, 
By one surmounting pine withstood. 

Still saturate with midnight through. 

Moonlit and turbulent. 
It waves against the autumn blue 

Its rapturous signals of content. 

And every tender creature heeds 

The protest of those arms. 
Against its widened hour of need, 

Against the day's distinct alarms. 

From haggard field and heat above, 

The fugitives of light 
Find here the brooding heart of love, 

And know again the balm of night. 

14 



A VERMONT PINE 

It is the refuge of spent heart, 

Of furtive feathered thing ; 
The twiHght moth's ecstatic art 

Trailing soft, a quivering wing. 

Spices of earth more faint than flowers, 

Sweeten the grey-green air; 
Here rest is keeping timeless hours, 

And here is silence, thick with prayer. 

Here fettered hope, imprisoned dream, 
Stretch to their long release. 

All sweet and faded memories seem 
Fixed in the substance of its peace. 

While all day long the branches there, 

High in the vaulted tree, 
Rock in the shadowy tides of air — 

Fresh tides of an eternal sea. 

And till its latest wave has swept 

Beneath this sovereign pine, 
A covenant of shade is kept 

That here the sun may never shine. 

15 



RECESSIONAL 

THROUGH autumn's bravery I hear 
A plaint as soft as falling leaf, 
Sweet as the hunter's song, and clear, 
And mournful as the pine tree's grief. 

So does the heart of summer break? 

Ah me — ah me ! In vain the blood 
Of roses, shed for her dear sake? 

In vain the song ghosts of the wood? 

Listen again ! The sunlight falls 
On ragged field and purple hill. 

Southward a lone bird, wheeling, calls, 
And then the world is still. 



i6 



L 



THE TENDER ISLES 

IKE molten silver is the sea, 
Bright, and stirring heavily. 



The shadow islands on it lie. 
(Islands of cloud are in the sky.) 

And white, between, the winter sun 
Is cold as loveless duty done. 

Only the islands soft and grey 
Are tender on the glittering day. 

Memories of one heart for me 
Are like the shadows on the sea. 



17 



RESURGAM 

A ROB IN singing in the rain, 
And through the mist a rose-tree 
burning ; 
Through years long past, forgotten, vain, 
One radiance again returning ! 

Love, is this all? Is there no more? 

I dreamed last night you came to me. 
Saying, "Upon this hidden shore 

Are all the things that used to be. 

*'01d springs blow faintly o'er the snow. 
And here old summers bloom and sigh. 

Octobers that we used to know. 

Kindle the world, and flame and die. 

*' Through our grey woods the snows still sift 

To settle on the fallen leaves. 
Cold winds, that drew us nearer, lift 

The same vines clinging to the eaves. * 

Then I may come and claim them all, 

You waiting in the dusk again! 
Else why the robin's ringing call, 

The roses burning in the rain? 

i8 



WINTER TWILIGHT 

NOW the white day turns deep and grey, 
The snow, in hyacinth, slopes away. 
Upon it fine, in deft design 
Is limned soft each tree and vine, 
While sudden, rare, and super-fair, 
A lovely shadow fills the air. 
Obediently the earth and I 
Are drawn together with the sky. 
And so I see a mystery 
Where neither day nor night can be. 



19 



INTIMATIONS 

THESE are some of the things I love : 
Height ! 
And long black shadows on the grass at night, 
Leaning away 
From the fair ray 
That would deliver them to light. 
Silence — silence in the wake of sound — 
And the drear pound 
Of the remorseless wave on the relentless 

shore. 
These things — and more — and more 
Of the mute call and shadow-hand, 
That throng the strand 
Between the fabric of our land 
And that sea 
Man names "Eternity." 



20 



SEA SONG 

OH, little white sails on the dark sea rim, 
The blue sea rim so clean and fine, 
And fringing waves that leap and swim, 
That weave and gather and dance and 
shine ! 



There is nothing over the water to-day 
But the little boats with their glistening 
wings. 
Even the distance is wiped away, 
And I gasp with the nearness and touch of 
things. 

Even the distance is wiped away 
Over the floor of the wide dark sea. 

Empty it is, for the empty day. 
And the eager, questing soul of me. 

But none too wide were it all, nor fair, 
And the farthest way were none too long ; 

For the last and best my soul would dare. 
And my heart with the strength of the sea 
is strong. 

21 



THE MOMENT 

HOW strange the sunshine of the afternoon 
That turns one side of every green 
thing gold, 
Leaving the other murmuring in shade, 
Flinging the shadows long upon the grass ! 
The air is clear, and the clear wind is strong. 
Strong, for the rapture of the bending trees — 
Slim poplars, white and young, and soft 
In tumult of the gently crowding leaves. 
The river, purple-etched by passing winds, 
While the long hills lie black against the west. 
Now all is ready, keen and fresh and void. 
The eye is wide; the heart is beating high, 
For all is ready. Wherefore? Who may say? 
Even now while yet we ask it is too late, 
Since what was coming has already passed! 



22 



T 



A ROSE 

0-DAY my heart is heavy with delight 
As this great rose with heaviness of 
June — 
The rose that has been steeped in summer 

night, 
In dew and darkness and the misted moon. 
I have been folded deep in dreams of thee — 
Only the rose may know thy words to me. 



23 



SPRING 

STILL white with snow, the sloping shore 
Lay lovely in the damp March day. 
Still white, save at the water's edge 
A broadening band of grey. 

The slant green lights were in the waves, 
A dusk of gold hung o'er the sea. 

No sun? I saw a seabird's wing 
Flashing mysteriously. 

Though nought whereof to be so glad 
My life could show me an3n;vhere, 

A joy beyond my dreaming pressed 
Close in the misty air. 

And oh, and oh to make it mine! 

Out into the mist I cry. 
The golden air, the melting shore, 

The flashing wings, reply. 



24 



THE NAME 

BETWEEN the tongues that praise and 
those that blame 
There walks Myself, imhearing and the same. 
Called many things by men, it has unknown 
a Name. 

The way is either dark or wildly lit. 
Myself is blind, and nothing knows of it. 
Somewhere, upon a Stone, the Name is writ. 

I know no more the Name than friend or foe, 
Nor how Myself, both deaf and blind, can go, 
But He who gave the name, and called Myself, 
doth know. 



25 



LIBERATION 

OH, gulls upon the gale, 
Oh whitecaps on the sea, 
Oh, distant, shining sail. 
Ye are all akin to me ! 

For my spirit follows, too, 
O'er the water green and grey 

*Neath the sky of white and blue. 
On this wild October day. 

I would follow on and find — 
Taste the secret of the free ; 

Of the wings that lance the wind, 
Of the winds that lift the sea. 

If I trusted to the ocean 

Should I feel such fair release? 

On the breast of its commotion 
Should I know such wing6d peace? 
26 



LIBERATION 

Oh, gulls upon the gale, 
Oh, whitecaps on the sea, 
Oh, white and shining sail. 
Ye are all akin to me. 

And my spirit follows, too, 
On the water green and grey, ^ 
Where the sky is white and blue 
On this far October day! 



27 



ATONEMENT 

WHAT is so cool as a fresh springing 
violet? 
And yet its life is part 
Of fire, hidden at creation's heart. 

Who has not warmed his soiil before a flam- 
ing rose, 

Although its crimson leaf 

Be cooler than the summer rain against his 
grief? 

So do there lie upon the lap of mystery 
Silent, in fold on fold, 

'Gainst tropic noons, the snows of time, per- 
fect and cold. 



28 



AN ENGLISH ROSE 

THERE is a dream that comes to me 
About a small white rose, 
That turns its shining petals out 

As soon as summer blows. 

Within an old-time garden grown 

Between the crumbling wall 
And unkempt hedges, dark and high, 

Where heavy shadows fall. 

The sunlight pierces gaily there, 

The bees and crickets sing, 
And little leaves drift idly by. 

Like flowers upon the wing. 

Sometimes I dream the daylight leaves 

My garden to the night. 

Then is the darkness lovelier 

Than all the world in light. 
29 



AN ENGLISH ROSE 

The night has made the shadows one, 

But where the hedges are 

I think I see the white rose shine 

Soft as a misted star. 

I dream — but oh, how distant now 

The little rose does seem, 

When you, white flower of my life, 

Bloom out upon my dream ! 



30 



IN MEMORIAM 

THERE is one dead of whom I always 
think 
When the red light is in the evening sky, 
And the dim hills in peace against it lie — 
One dear and dead, of whom I always think. 

It still is he, when the red light is gone 
And the cold mists from out the valley rise, 
Blending the pale hills and the faded skies — 
It still is he my heart is dwelling on. 

Dwells, and refuses to be comforted, 
For what avail the things that people say, 
The claim and clamour of recurring day? 
The quiet evening knows that he is dead! 

But when the dusk has deepened into night 
Wherein there throbs one white, intrepid star, 
I think the things that were touch those 

that are. 
And in that moment comes the Gift of Sight. 



31 



THE SON 

" Wist ye not that I must be about my Father* s 

business?'' 

A FIGURE sweet and luminous 
Across the night He came, 
All gentle in His loneliness 
But buoyant as a flame. 

Like one who feeling men's despair 
Yet knew their coming power, 

As to the darkened world He brought 
Its great predestined hour. 

'Twas pity on His radiant face 

That lay, a lovely shade. 
(This was the dearest gift, I think, 

Which earth to heaven made.) 

32 



THE SON 



Where children laughed, and women prayed, 

And men in courage trod, 
He moved intent, participant, 

This little Son of God. 



And at the loom of life He wrought, 
The pattern and the plan — 

The pain, the labour, and the joy — 
He was the Son of Man. 

So what He saw, with hungry love. 

Upon the crowded earth. 
Were souls in travail glorious 

With the divinest birth. 

And what they saw was just a Lad 
Who moved about the land. 

With those all-understanding eyes 
They could not understand. 

But what the Father saw — the heart 
Falls blind before the thought ! 

Had not the Father known His Son 
Before the world was wrought? 
3 33 



REVEILLE 

OLD he was, as last I knew. 
I see the sHghtly stooping head, 
The tremulous step, but trained and true- 
He had the soldier's tread. 

I see him put his shoulders back 
Against the years that bore him on, 

And take the sloping, westward track 
Like one who faced the sun. 

His romance was a yellowed flower. 

History had made his wars her own. 
And just ahead was that pale hour 

Which each must pass alone. 

So wistful was his gaze, and dim. 
Toward the yet unfinished years, 

I wanted to turn back with him 
And save my heart the tears. 

34 



REVEILLE 



Last night I saw him as I slept. 

How young he was, and gladly fair! 
All that my heart for him had wept 

And he had lost, was there! 

And so my song is sung to-day 

Because of this one gleam of truth : 

When my old Soldier went away 
He found again his youth. 



35 



THE PERFECT THING 

TO-DAY I know there is no perfect thing 
Except the love that comes to us in 
dreams 
Of our dear dead, when once again 
We have them in our arms, and know — and 

know 
That all the anguish has been false and vain. 
In that calm flood of ease and perfect joy, 
That meeting without haste or fear, aware 
Of its infinity — Oh, sweet and safe! 
'Twas such a dream I had. The thing he 

said 
To me I cannot hear, but I can see it 
In the memory of his face. It has nor name 
Nor sound, but only light. The same that 

burns 
Warm, through the whiteness of the common 

day. 
Transfusing all — and yet a different thing 
From any but the beauty of my dream. 



36 



THE CHIMES 

TWAS but a second since they passed — 
Those traceless flights of broken song, 
So strange and fast 
So sweet and strong; 
Not always glad nor always mild ; 
Not always sad nor always wild; 
Now far and clear; 
Now soft and near; 
Now gone ! and so completely gone 
That they would seem 
To be a dream 

Were they not ringing on and on 
Within my soul, 
As now they roll 

Along through evening's azure space 
To their last limpid resting-place 
Upon that glorious golden day 
Where they may moor their song — and stay. 



37 



A ROSE 

COOL is my red rose, as the dawn is cool. 
Against my cheek, its touch is delicate 
As the first Spring's first touch, initiate. 
And it is deep with colour as a pool — 
Clear, deep, and undivined as Truth. 
Joy-tipt it is — the sweet hurt at its heart 
Of bitter golden honey is to part, 
For it is passing ere it find its youth. 
Its crimson petals are like little wings, 
Shaken with sunshine and attuned to flight, 
But clinging to the shadowy soul of things, 
And captive to its mystery of night. 
A sweetness, of sweet things being bom, is in 

its breath — 
The freshness floating in with Life, and over 

Death. 



38 



ON THE SHORE 

IN the dense wide grey of the twilight at sea, 
In the deepening arch of blue, 
In each new-born light, trembling and white, 
Love of my dreams, is it you? 

Close! For my heart is lonely and cold. 

Soft ! For my heart is sore 
With wending of ways and coming of days, 

The sunshine and the shore. 

Here is the tread of the twilight at sea. 

The cry of the sea to the land. 
The depths above — but love, ah love. 

Never the touch of your hand ! 

Shall we never meet but as dream meets 
dream. 

Perhaps as life meets birth. 
Or time meets years, or grief meets tears, 

But not as we meet on earth? 



39 



A DREAM 

LAST night beneath the stars I dreamed 
of thee. 
Down shimmering ways, through shadow 

worlds I went, 
To find at last thine arms awaiting me, 
Just as the breathless span of night was spent. 



40 



THE THOUGHT 

1 THINK no great thing is, but that must 
show 
Some sign of measure of its magnitude — 
Some hint of that which were, if it were not. 
The night is interrupted by the stars 
And the smooth sea is broken by the waves, 
The evening and the silent mountain view 
Have cow-bells, or the ax within the woods 
To sound the depth of stillness and of peace. 
And the vast height of sky shows here 
A tilting bird, or there a lonely tree 
Upon the hill, pointing the scale of its 
White altitude. So this, my joy 
In you, perchance could never know itself 
For all it is, without the thought of hours 
Ere you were here, or the chill dread — 
No, give it not a name, for you are come. 
And it could never be as once it was ! 



41 



DRIFTING 

IN the mist that is over the water 
(The mist that is under the sky) 
Are ships that move, 
Dim stars above 
And we that love — 
You and I. 

Oh, the wind that blows over the water 

(The wind that blows down from the sky) 

Is soft as the wings 

Of invisible things, 

Or the hope that it brings, 

Or the sigh ! 

I see no marge to the water, 

I see no line to the sky. 

Only I hear 

Your heart beat, Dear, 

Nor care — nor fear — 

To die. 



42 



A HARVEST FIELD 
(after millet) 

THE opulence of sunlight, 
The privilege of shade, 
The relish of the resting 
From the swinging of the blade — 
It is the golden harvest 
With trees about the rim ; 
The smitten straw's sweet savour 
Where little insects swim ; 
A yellow dusty dimness 
Around the reaper's way, 
Who reaps a year of glory 
Within a single day. 



43 



LOST 

THERE was a time cut out from Time 
And given over to thee, 
Fashioned of things too sweet and strange, 
Too beautiful to be. 

I cannot tell how long it was. 

I only know 'tis past. 
It covers all my memory, 

And yet it went so fast. 

And thou — in vain I look for thee 

Among the things that are. 
I cannot find thy place or time, 

Thy moment or thy star! 

Hadst thou no other dwelling, then, 

Save that I gave to thee — 
That time of things too wonderful. 

Too beautiful to be? 



44 



THE SONG 

SING!" said Love, and piped a lay- 
Under the tree, a Summer day. 
But Life his gay demand denied. 
"Joy is too sweet for song," she sighed. 

"Sing!" said Love, at a feast, "for see, 
I drain the cup of gods to thee!" 
But Life her lifted goblet quaffed. 
"Pride is too great for song," she laughed. 

"Sing!" said Love, "the night grows long 
While I grow weary for thy song, 
And if thou wilt not sing for me, 
I needs must ask of Memory." 



45 



THE SONG 

*Twas then a wondrous song there came, 
Cleaving the silence like a flame, 
Filling the wide and empty night 
With pain and longing and delight. 

The shivering stars grew still, to place 
The singer of that song of grace. 
But only Love's deep eyes could see 
If it were Life — or Memory. 



46 



WINDS 

THE wind that blows against the sea- 
Cruel it is and great and strong. 
It moves in fate and mystery, 
Heaping in serried lines the sea, 
(Grey trenches of grim tragedy). 
So many and so long! 

The winds that blow among the grass- 
Dear little winds, how well I mind 
When I was but a tiny lass, 
With head no higher than the grass, 
How sweet it was to feel them pass, 
How soft they were, and kind! 



47 



THE CALL 

IS it of flame or flower that you are, 
O Love of mine? 
Your luminous soul, white as a winter star, 
And your red lips, like wine. 

Of the strong earth you are so sure a part, 

And yet there lies 
A dream of radiant distance round your heart, 

And in your shaded eyes. 

So on the brink of an infinity 

I see you stand. 
Called by the pale lips of a misty sea, 

Held by the throbbing land. 

And I am waiting — whither lies your way, 

Dear Mystery? 
Out where the young night meets the passing 
day? 

Or through the fields — with me! 



48 



WRITTEN IN A COPY OF BLISS CAR- 
MAN'S SEA POEMS 

COME take a look in my little green 
book — 
Its covers hold the sea ; 
The far sea line, the sea-smell fine, 
The sea winds full and free. 

The ache of the heart when sails depart, 

Its joy when waves break near; 
The throb of the eye when gulls beat high, 

Ah, more than life is here ! 

My heart I gave to the heart of the wave — 

Pledged it, and pledged again! 
And still I wait by the sea's grey gate 

Nor count the vigil vain. 

Far the quest of the sea's unrest? 

Aye, but the sea is fair. 
And fair the place in its vanishing space 

For those who follow and dare — 

Who love and follow and dare! 

4 49 



ON THE SOUND 

THERE is no song for silence, nor brush to 
show the way 
The white ships move at evening over the 

quiet bay — 
Pale sky and water meeting where the night 
line meets the day. 

But see, beyond the headland there drops the 

reddened sun! 
Hark, the report and thunder that trails from 

the sunset gun! 
The day has turned to ashes, with the quest 

of the ships undone. 



50 



THE THINGS THAT ARE THE 
CLEAREST 

THE things that are the clearest, 
The deepest and the dearest, 
How very like they seem to me, and yet how 

far apart! 
A deep red rose at morning, 
A planet before dawning, 
And the deep, deep eyes of her who is the 
mistress of my heart. 



The rose there, swimming, burning, 

In depths beyond discerning, 

And clarity as fathomless and starry as the 
skies, 

Is as far from our unfolding 

In the secret it is holding 

As the unplumbed light of planets or the won- 
der of her eyes. 



51 



VOICES— A CYCLE 



HEART of the hills, your echoes fall 
So clear upon my dreams, 
I wake and follow to the call 

Along the woods and streams ; 
Finding the dear forgotten ways. 
Missing the dear remembered days. 



II 



Voice of the sea, your solace rings 
A diapason low 

Through all the clear and broken strings- 
Through songs that live or go — 

To sleep ! Without a dream at all 

On which a memory may fall ! 

52 



V \j L ^^ 12. zy .rt. \^ X K^ 1^ n, 

III 

Spirit of sky, in you the hill 

Loses its dimmest dream. 
The ocean's somnolence and chill 

Quicken beneath your gleam. 
While Memory turns to Hope, the sea 
Stirs in its sleep with Memory. 



53 



<< 



SHUT-IN" CREEK 



THE shadows lie across the dusty road. 
Oh, Unforgotten One, do you remember 
How clear and beautiful the shadows were 
Upon that first September? 

The day on horseback at the mountain ford — 
I see the horses in the rocky stream ; 
I hear their ringing hoofs, plangent and clear, 
And buried, like a dream. 

Farther a little brook ran brilliant by. 

And some one murmured of the "golden 

sands." 
We drew rein silently, the while "the glass 
Turned" in the "glowing hands." 

At last the sudden twilight, when we wheeled 
And, wordless, went along the dimning way — 
Ah, Unforgotten, just to know that you 
Are living in that day! 



54 



A SUNSET 

MY love stood at the window, a red rose 
at her breast ; 
The red light of the setting sun poured on her 

from the west ; 
Of all the sunlight touched that hour, it 
matched the rose the best. 



The rose was red and amber ; the sunlight red 

and gold. 
(Who would have thought such dusky hair 

such yellow lights could hold?) 
Her eyes surrendered to the sun, because the 

sun was bold. 



Oh, rose, a ruby chalice brimming with amber 

wine — 
A golden goblet redder filled than red drops 

of the vine! 
Oh, crimson cup of Love, Lifers hand one 

moment pressed to mine ! 



55 



